


How Could It Be (Any Better Than This?)

by roseandheather



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, F/M, Finally, Fluff, Neal Catches a Clue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandheather/pseuds/roseandheather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times someone asked when Neal was going to propose to Christa already, <i>honestly</i>, and the one time he finally did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Could It Be (Any Better Than This?)

**1\. Angus & Malaya**

"... _so_ gone on her, it's actually a little bit ridiculous."

Neal freezes, flattening his back to the wall. He can't see around the corner, but he knows that voice _very_ well, and this is the last moment in the world he wants to encounter Malaya Pineda.

"Tell me about it," mutters a lower voice that has to be Angus. "Honestly, every time he walks in the room I start confusing Christa with an actual real-life sunbeam, the way she lights up around him."

"And the way he smiles at her!" agrees Malaya, sounding far too gleeful about it for Neal's peace of mind. "And he worries _so_ much about her, honestly, she can't even squeak before he's checking if she's okay - even if he has to call across the room to do it."

 _I do not,_ Neal thinks indignantly.

"You'd think they'd just get married already," Angus grumbles. "It's not like they don't already act like it."

Neal sits with a thump, one thankfully disguised by the supplies cart the residents are pushing, and he goes still, hardly breathing, until their footsteps have faded away.

Marry Christa?

Yes, he loves her more than he's ever loved another human being, but she's still a resident, for God's sake - and one who could have her pick of jobs when she finishes. He's never even considered it, never even _thought_ of tying her down when she has the world at her fingertips...

 _And if all she wants is you?_ asks a nagging voice in the back of his mind. _It's not like you're not both in this madness together, after all._

"Shut up," he mutters to himself. "We're fine the way things are. When she finishes her residency - then I'll think about it. And not until then!"

 _You keep telling yourself that,_ mutters the voice sardonically, and he wishes quite desperately that he could punch it in the face.

 

**2\. Amy**

"...darling, are you _sure_ you don't want me to come over?"

"Of course not," rasps Christa on the other end of the phone. "It's just a bug, Neal, really. Go do your job!"

"But if you're sick - "

"I have the _flu,_ " she tells him, only just starting to sound a bit cross. "I'll be fine in twenty-four hours, give or take, and if I'm not, I'll go to urgent care. I _promise._ Los Angeles needs you one heck of a lot more than I do."

He sighs. "I'm not going to budge you on this one, am I?"

"Nope." She sounds entirely too cheerful about the fact, even when he can distinctly hear the sound of vomiting on the other end of the line.

"All right," he acquiesces at last. "If you're _sure,_ darling. But if you need me, you call, understood?"

"I promise." Christa's voice is unbearably warm, and he doesn't even try to hide the besotted grin on his face. "I'll see you soon, okay?"

"All right, love. Take care!"

"I will. Neal?"

"Yes, darling?"

"I love you."

His grin gets impossibly wider. "You too, Christa. You, too."

He hangs up the phone, mingled relief and disappointment warring in his heart - relief that Christa was taking care of herself, and disappointment that he'd lose out on working with her, however briefly.

Amy, scribbling something on a chart, cocks an eyebrow at him. "Problems?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing serious. Dr. Lorenson is down with a bug, but she should be fine tomorrow. I'm told to carry on as usual. We will be short-staffed, though."

"We'll take care of it," Amy assures him, and Neal nods. _God bless the day He invented nurses,_ he thinks fervently, and he twitches a little when Amy laughs. "When are you going to make an honest woman of that girl?" she asks him tartly, and signs off her chart with a flourish. "Really, doctor. I don't need an M.D. to diagnose you with a severe case of 'head over heels for Christa Lorenson.'"

"She's still a resident," he mutters, glowering at the counter.

"Not for much longer," Amy points out. "Let me give you some friendly advice, doc - when you find something good, something worth fighting for, you hold on to it. You hear?"

"Don't you have patients that don't include my love life?" he inquires mildly, and Amy winks at him before she starts working her way through the crowd.

And if he spends the rest of the shift with one eye over his shoulder, searching for a blonde head he doesn't find, that's nobody's business but his.

 

**3\. The Cutest Little Old Lady Patient in the World**

"There you are," he says gently, fingers neatly finishing off the wrap on his patient's cast. "You'll be wearing it for awhile, I'm afraid."

"That's all right, dear." His patient - eighty-five if she's a day, with round cheeks and snow-white hair - pats him on the cheek. "If a sprained wrist is all I've got, I'll consider myself lucky. The last time I was in here, I needed a hip replacement!"

He grins at that. Grace Tolliver is his favorite kind of patient - old, sweet, undemanding, and relentlessly cheerful. "Well, I think you'll avoid surgery today," he assures her, and bends to finishing off his chart notes.

"Thank you, dear. Say, is that your young lady over there?" She nods at Christa, who is bent over an asthmatic little boy, murmuring softly to him as she works.

"Yes, actually, she is. How could you tell?"

"You kept flicking your eyes in her direction," Grace informs him sunnily. "Not for very long, no more than a couple of seconds, but you were doing it so often - "

He ducks his head. "Guilty," he admits, even as just the thought of Christa as his 'young lady' makes him smile. "I should probably apologize," he adds, but Grace waves him off.

"Oh, there's no need for that, dear. It's not like I was dying on you. And she really is beautiful."

"Yeah," he agrees, his eyes on Christa's profile as she smiles down at her patient. "She really is."

"Let me give you some advice," Grace says confidingly. "Someone makes you smile like that, you hold onto it, you hear? Because that's worth everything." She sighs, a smile of fond, wistful memory on her face. "My late husband made me smile like that. Still does, though he's been gone these ten years. But I'll tell you, at least I never missed a moment with him. Regret is the most painful thing in the world, and the only thing you can't fix until the chance is already gone."

"Yes," Neal murmurs, still watching Christa. "Yes, I can see that." He comes back to himself, shaking his head. "All right, Mrs. Tolliver, let's get you discharged, shall we?"

Grace Tolliver's words linger with him long after his shift is over, when he's lying in bed waiting for Christa to come out of the bathroom, and when she settles in beside him, he turns to her and kisses her with a heat usually reserved for long, lazy days off when they rarely leave the bed. Christa gasps and melts into him, and when he pulls away some long moments later, she blinks up at him, big blue eyes just a little bit dazed.

"What was that for?" she gasps, touching her forehead to his in a gesture that has become fraught with meaning to them both.

"Nothing," he says with a shrug. "And everything."

She studies his face for a moment, and whatever she sees there, she must like it, because she beams at him. "Good enough," she says, and kisses him back.

 

**4\. Jesse**

"Easy there, Dr. Lorenson. Try not to move."

"Oh, Mama, I'm - _Ow!_ "

Jesse raises an eyebrow at her.

Christa looks at the ground. "Sorry, Mama."

"Forgiven," Jesse says with a grin. "Now stay still."

Christa grits her teeth against the pain, but knows better than to try and move her ankle. "Yes, Mama."

Neal gets through the door then, kneeling beside her and drawing her back against his chest, giving her something to lean against. She sinks against him with a grateful sigh, and he reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ears and away from her sweaty forehead.

"Christa, what _happened?_ "

"Some idiot," Christa grumbles, "forgot to put down a Wet Floor sign. I slipped."

Holding her just a little tighter, Neal looks up at Jesse. "Mama - "

"Already summoned me," says Leanne, sailing through the door. "Hello, Christa. Looks like you're having a day."

"You could say that," agrees Christa through gritted teeth.

"Well, let me take a look."

Leanne goes to work, and when Christa begins to cry, Neal takes one of her hands in his, interlacing their fingers, letting her squeeze. By the time Leanne finishes, his hand is numb and Christa is shaking, and he's never been so irrationally angry with Leanne Rorish in his life.

"That's enough," he snaps. "Leanne, she's hurting!"

Christa shakes her head. "I'm fine," she gets out. "Keep going, Leanne."

Leanne flicks a glance at both of them, then goes back to work. She wraps Christa's broken ankle, and then between them Neal and Jesse lift her onto the nearest gurney. "All right, Christa," says Leanne, patting her on the shoulder. "Who do you want to cast you up?"

"Angus," Christa says instantly, and when Neal gets up to leave, hurt in his eyes, she reaches out for him. "Stay until you have to go?" she asks softly, and he takes her hand, then runs a gentle touch over her hair.

"Of course."

Leanne leaves then, back for the madness of Center Stage, and Neal sits with her, holding her hand and murmuring distracting stories, as Angus neatly casts her broken ankle. Then he and Jesse take her, one on each side, into the break room, parking Christa on a sofa despite her objections.

"You just stay there, Dr. Lorenson," Jesse tells her firmly. "Dr. Hudson, when are you due off?"

He flicks a glance at the clock. "Two hours."

"And in two hours Dr. Hudson will take you home," Jesse finishes.

Christa grins and looks at the floor. "Yes, Mama."

"Good girl." Jesse pats her on the shoulder, and Neal kisses her, quick and fast, before he follows Jesse out the door.

"You gonna be able to function?" Jesse asks him bluntly when the door has closed behind them.

"Will I - Mama!"

"It's a fair question," Jesse points out, his eyes twinkling. "You _are_ gone over the rainbow for that one, doc."

Neal just shakes his head. "I'll be fine, and so will she."

"But will you be fine together? Or are you just gonna keep on putting off what you should've done months ago?"

"Jesse!"

"She's a smart cookie, Christa Lorenson," Jesse adds, "but even she can be a bit stupid where love is concerned. Don't try so hard not to tie her down that you make her think there's nothing to stay for."

Neal just gapes.

"Good talk," says Jesse, patting him cheerfully on the back. "Now let's get moving."

' _Don't try so hard not to tie her down that you make her think there's nothing to stay for.'_

He can't get the words out of his mind for the rest of the day.

 

**5\. Leanne**

"Another one of epi! Push it! Mario, take over compressions!"

The world is a haze around him, barked orders and medications cycling through his mind.

"Neal."

"Shock him again! Let's go, people!"

" _Neal!_ " Christa's voice cuts through the din, slices through the fog clouding his mind, and he looks up to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispers, and he turns back to his patient. The lines on the monitor are flat, and when he searches for a pulse, he doesn't find one.

He swallows, hard. "Any objections?"

Silence.

"Time of death, 5:21 a.m."

It's only then that he realizes his hands are shaking.

He sees Christa and Leanne share a glance, and then Christa is taking him by the hand, heedless of the blood. "Come on," she says softly, and guides him, still dazed to the break room.

He sinks to the sofa with his head in his hands, and Christa kneels in front of him, her hands around his wrists. "It wasn't your fault," she whispers, and when he shakes his head she draws him down until his face is buried against her shoulder and he is shaking to pieces in her arms.

That's how Leanne finds them some ten minutes later.

"Christa," she says gently, "your broken leg is ready to discharge, on your call."

Softly, Christa kisses his forehead, then leaves the room.

"I'm sorry," murmurs Leanne, sitting beside him, but he shakes his head wearily.

"It wasn't your fault," he says dully. "It wasn't anyone's."

Leanne nods. "Christa convince you of that?"

He smiles, raw but true. "Eventually."

"You know," Leanne says reflectively, "I have never once regretted telling someone I love them."

He starts. "Christa knows I - "

"But does she know you want her to stay?" Leanne interrupts, her eyes unnervingly intent. "That you'd really quite like to make a life with her?"

"I'm not sure 'really quite like to' is the right phrase," he mutters, huffing out a laugh. "I feel a bit more strongly than that!"

"Then tell her," insists Leanne. "I get why you're waiting, but she stops being a resident in six weeks. And maybe you don't want to tie her down - but she deserves the _choice,_ Neal."

He sighs, gazing sightlessly at the door. "I don't want to think about a life without her, Leanne," he admits raggedly.

"Then stop and think for a minute that she might just feel the same way about you."

His head is still spinning, trying to get round that little bombshell, when the door shuts behind Leanne with a thump.

 

**+1. ...and When He Finally Did**

"How did we manage this?" wonders Christa, blinking up at him.

"I'm not sure," Neal admits, running a hand from her shoulder down her bare arm. She's sprawled over him, starfish-style, her head resting on his chest, and he strokes her hair absently. "But I'm not going to argue with three days in bed with you."

"After what Leanne has put me through the last three years," Christa grumbles, "I think I've earned it."

"Oh," he agrees fervently. "That, darling, you most definitely do."

Suddenly it strikes him, out of the blue, that there will never be a better time for this.

"Christa," he asks slowly.

She props herself up on one elbow. "Yeah?"

"You and I, we're..." He looks at her, helplessly, but she just smiles that radiant smile.

"Yeah," she agrees softly. "We are."

He swallows, hard. _Time to cross the Rubicon._ "You're not a resident any more," he continues. "And maybe I shouldn't have waited this long - but I wanted to be sure I wasn't tying you down, that you weren't - "

" _Neal._ " Her voice is sharp suddenly, intent. "What are you trying to ask me?"

 _Best just get out with it._ He takes a deep, slow breath, then lets it out, and blurts it in a rush. "Christa, will you marry me?"

She stares at him for so long he thinks he's gotten this all wrong, that he's waited too long, that she doesn't want to be tied down after all - but then she kisses him, tears sliding down her cheeks, and her answer hits him in his gut before it can ever hit his brain.

She pulls away with a gasp, thumping him lightly on the shoulder. "Is _that_ why you waited so long? You didn't want to tie me down?"

"Exactly. Christa, you could have gone anywhere in the _world_ with your residency. I didn't want to keep those opportunities from you - "

"Oh, Neal," she whispers. "You _idiot._ "

"Huh?"

"Don't you know by now? Angels... it's home to me now. Home, and hope. I don't think I could leave if I tried - and not just because of you. Because of Leanne, and Amy, and Mama, and... and because it's the place where I found my happiness again. I found something to live for, and... yes, you're a part of that, but you're not all of it. I _love_ Angels. I don't want to work anywhere else." She studies him seriously. "And I don't want to work anywhere you're not."

He isn't crying. He is absolutely _not._

Even if Christa _is_ gently wiping the tears from his cheeks.

"Is that a yes?" he asks her hoarsely, too stunned to even smile.

"Of course it's a yes," she manages at last. "Neal, of _course_ it is."

There aren't words for this, can't be, so he just kisses her instead, and lets love carry them as it would.

~*~

Some time later, when her head is again pillowed on his shoulder, she strokes his knuckles and asks, "Would you mind if I kept my maiden name for work?"

Still half asleep, the question only partly registers. "Of course not," he murmurs. "Anything you - "

Then his eyes pop open. "For work?"

He feels her nod against his chest. "Well, I think having two Dr. Hudsons running around would make things confusing, and - "

"If you're keeping your name for work," he interrupts, his brain slowly coming online, "then what - "

She shrugs. "I love my job, but it can't be everything," she says practically. "And I'd like to save 'Christa Hudson' for life outside the hospital."

He turns his head to stare at her, something so wonderful it almost hurts swelling in his chest, until he's choking on air, until he can hardly breathe for loving her.

"Neal?" she asks worriedly after a moment. "Are you - "

"Shut up," he manages, shaking his head. "Just shut up." And he kisses her, hard, sweet, and very, _very_ not fast. And it doesn't matter that they're both worn out, that this will stay with only kisses - he doesn't care. With Christa, he never does. He just kisses her and kisses her and kisses her, pouring everything 'Christa Hudson' means to him from his heart to hers, because there aren't words that can do it for him, he can only kiss her and kiss her and hope she understands.

Then she kisses him back, and he stops wondering if she does.

~*~

The next time he walks into Angels, Leanne takes one look at his besotted face and hugs him. Startled, he hugs her back - Leanne Rorish is not a person particularly given to hugs - and she whispers "Finally!" in his ear, then lets him go to punch him lightly on the shoulder.

He just grins helplessly at her, shrugging. "You were right."

Leanne's smile doesn't dim for the rest of the day, but even that pales next to Christa's radiant, beaming face.

And, he suspects, next to his as well.

He really, _really_ could not care less.

 


End file.
